


The uses of excess

by anactoriatalksback



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Fingering, And ain't that the Terror fandom in a nutshell, M/M, Melancholy, Post-Canon Fix-It, implied/referenced trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:20:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25748794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoriatalksback/pseuds/anactoriatalksback
Summary: Francis Crozier thinks sometimes that his life swings between the poles of ‘Too much’ and ‘Not enough’ and has never found a stopping point in between.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 26
Kudos: 66
Collections: Fingerbang #4





	The uses of excess

**Author's Note:**

> 5-day, 500-word challenge for the prompt: 'Too much'.

Francis Crozier thinks sometimes that his life swings between the poles of ‘Too much’ and ‘Not enough’ and has never found a stopping point in between.

* * *

Thirteen children never seemed so very wonderful in County Down, but as he grew older and began to breathe more rarefied air, he learned to brace himself for the question ‘And do you have brothers and sisters?’ and for the politely-murmured ‘Goodness me’ at his reply. An Irish excess, he could hear them think. A most Papist excess, and – in the nature of unspoken errors – he did not correct them.

* * *

‘Too much’ was in the pursed lips and lines around the eyes of Jopson, of Little, of Fitzjames and Blanky and Ross, every time he reached for the bottle. _I come from too much_ , he wanted to say, _and we are becalmed in the middle of too much, of_ much _too much, of nothing, this too much in my glass is barely anything at all._

* * *

‘Too much,’ said Fitzjames, considering their cargo.

‘We can leave it behind if we need to,’ said Crozier. ‘We have no clear idea how long we’ll need it.’

* * *

‘You’re doing too much,’ said Crozier, hand around Fitzjames’s arm – thin, he could feel it, skin hanging off bone.

‘Not enough,’ said Fitzjames, taking his help to stand up and swaying a little.

‘James, you’re no good to us if you drop.’

‘I might as well be of use before I do,’ said Fitzjames, his good eye finding Crozier’s.

Crozier held his gaze as long as he was able before nodding.

* * *

‘Too much,’ said Fitzjames to Crozier, struggling to sit up.

‘Nonsense,’ said Crozier.

‘I’m slowing you down,’ said Fitzjames. ‘I know I am, this is absurd, Francis.’

‘We’ll have you to rights in no time,’ said Crozier, ‘and then I can take a turn being a lordling and being taken for a jaunt on the ice.’

Fitzjames smiled – a bleeding thing making perilous demands on his meagre stores of concentration – and let his head fall back.

* * *

‘Too much,’ thought Francis, when they were herded onto the ship.

‘Too much,’ he thought, when he was in Ross’s drawing-room in Blackheath and he could feel the velvet covering the arm-rest.

‘Too much,’ when he saw a table groaning with the zealot’s gluttony of a fashionable Anglo-Indian breakfast. Kedgeree and ham and eggs and butter and marmalade and toast cut as thick as his wrist.

‘Too much,’ at the crackle and blaze of a fire in September.

And then he saw Fitzjames creep closer to the fire, catching the glow in the furrows on his cheeks.

‘Warm enough?’ he asked.

Fitzjames glanced at him and smiled. ‘Nearly.’

* * *

‘Too much,’ says – gasps – Fitzjames, knuckles white as he clutches the sheets.

‘Really?’ says Crozier, fingers moving with purpose. Fitzjames’ back arches and he sobs as his prick twitches.

Crozier thinks, as he plunges his fingers in again, that he might have finally discovered the uses of excess.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr handle is [itsevidentvery](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to come yell with me there.


End file.
